Castle Green wins appeal for 121 Flintshire homes

Armed with the Welsh Government’s go-ahead, the housebuilder can move forward with its fully affordable neighbourhood at Quarry Farm – either the 121-residence version that won at appeal or the 109-home version that won the county council’s favour nearly three weeks ago.

Flintshire County Council has been ordered to pay costs to Castle Green Homes as a result of the appeal.

Castle Green had been targeting 12 acres in Oakenholt for development since 2023. The site sits on Quarry Farm just south of Chester Road and includes 1.5 acres of Best and Most Versatile agricultural land. However, this part of the farm is used for grazing.

The first iteration of the project sought permission to build 121 affordable homes with between one and four bedrooms. However, this was refused by Flintshire councillors who believed the layout and proposed density would harm the character of the surrounding area and the living conditions of residents.

Castle Green appealed the refusal, but in the meantime sought to appease county councillors by reducing the density and tweaking the layout – submitting a new version for consideration.

It was this version that secured the green light at the county council’s 15 July planning committee meeting.

Both forms of the project had received a recommendation to approve from the county council’s own planning team.

With the ability to build either design, Castle Green is assessing its options and is active talks with North Wales Housing, the registered provider attached to the project.

The appeal details

Returning to the application that was refused in June last year: Planning and Environment Decisions Wales’s inspector disagreed with the county council’s reasons for refusal.

The layout and density of the project represented “an appropriate sense of place and and a balanced street scene,” they observed in a decision notice published just a week after the later version of the project was approved at committee.

The inspector pointed out hat there would be two playgrounds and more public open space than is required by the county council’s local plan.

Issues around flooding had been introduced by the county council as problematic during the appeal process. However, the inspector said that the proposals to mitigate flood risk, including having a sustainable drainage system, were adequate.

It was the flooding part of the appeal that led to Castle Green being awarded costs. While the inspector noted that councillors had not acted unreasonably in their reasons for refusal (even if they disagreed with the result). However, the council had introduced a new reason to object late in the process requiring additional work and then did not

Partial costs have been awarded to Castle Green Homes as a result of the appeal, with the planning inspector noting that Flintshire County Council had acted unreasonably in raising flood risk and drainage as an in-principle objection to the proposal so late in the appeal process.

Stuart Andrew, pre-construction director at Castle Green Homes, welcomed the inspector’s ruling.

“There’s an acute need for affordable housing across Flintshire, with over two thousand households on the council’s waiting lists,” he said.

“This includes hundreds of people in Flint and the surrounding area, and we want to help address that need by delivering high-quality affordable homes through our new development in Oakenholt.”

He added later: “The decision made by PEDW in respect of this appeal validates the original position taken by both ourselves and the council’s planning officers that our original application was entirely reasonable and appropriate in terms of its siting, layout, scale, height, density and landscaping.

“The subsequent refusal of our application for 121 homes was considered by the PEDW’s inspector to not be justified, and the appeal decision states that the original proposal ‘would respond effectively to the established character and context of the area’ and ‘would appear as a sensitive infilling of the existing gap between Croes Atti and Leadbrook Drive and a logical extension to the existing settlement’.”

Hourigan Planning supported Castle Green on both versions of the scheme. The project team includes FPCR Environment and Design, TPM Landscape, Grimster Planning, Reading Agricultural Consultants, Ascerta, Wardell Armstrong, Heneb, Coopers, E3P, NKC Geotech Limited, and SCP.

To learn more about the first version of the application – the one approved at appeal – search reference CAS-04653-H5H1S8 on the PEDW’s Planning Casework portal or FUL/000372/24 on Flintshire County Council’s planning portal.

To learn more about the second version of the application – the one approved at committee – search reference FUL/001038/25 on Flintshire County Council’s planning portal.